he was born in Corigliano Calabro (province of Cosenza, Italy). Living since a young age in the neighborhood of El Abasto, in Buenos Aires, with her parents Francisco Licciardi and María Desimone, we cannot refer to Josefina without mentioning the violent and critic period that took place in Argentina in the seventies and eighties in the last century. Political, union and social fights are evidenced with their profound contrasts in popular songs, including tango. The innovative hope of the genre in a few years was smothered by censorship and blurred by, sometimes, forced exile, by ideological persecutions and, other times intended for artistic needs.

In that context, in full effervescence when democracy was restored and folk music was in vogue, Josefina successfully appeared at the Festival of Baradero in 1972. From then on her very peculiar voice and her rebellious opinions were frequently aired on the radio. Hugo Guerrero Marthineitz, always willing to promote young talents, aired her in his radio programs Splendid Show and El Show del Minuto on Radio Belgrano.

When the democratic government was overthrown in 1976 her career depended on circumstances as it happened with many artists. Josefina occasionally appeared at tango venues. She had a short tenure at the mythical Caño 14 and only succeeded in recording her first important record (A mi manera, CBS), in 1980. Accompanied by the leader and arranger Dino Saluzzi, the meeting of a female singer with a tendency towards a style of the outskirts and a Piazzollian avant-gardist may have been quite an example of «what was possible». A bandoneon and a vocalist anchored to the assured and revived presence of days gone by in order not to dive into a risky, uncertain future. The numbers: “Amurado”, “No aflojés”, “Jacinto Chiclana”, “Julián”, “Te llaman malevo”; “El motivo”, “La mina del Ford”, “Rosa de otoño”, “Vos de tango” and “Ladrillo”. The producer was Eduardo Álvarez.

Strengthened and backed by her achievement, (highlighted in pages like the ones of the magazine in the La Nación newspaper) but constrained, however, by the withdrawals of an astounded society, the female singer decided to appear abroad. So she had her chance to appear at the famous tango venue Trottoirs de Buenos Aires run by Tomas Berna, Darío Cantón and a group of Argentine and European intellectuals in the neighborhood of Les Halles, Paris, on November 19, 1981 alongside the Sexteto Mayor and sponsored by the writer Julio Cortázar.

Josefina’s appearances at that venue, which preceded in a couple of years the world boom of Tango Argentino, made that Annie Marie Paquotte, journalist in Telerama, say in 1982: «Hurrah Argentina! This beautiful Argentinian makes us breathe again a tango fever at the Troittoirs de Buenos Aires. Fleshy voice, profound singing and sure charm. Let themselves be fascinated by this lady at the Trottoirs de Buenos Aires. 37, Rue de Lombard, Parisian core».

It was the start of a long pilgrimage throughout several European countries and the demanding Japan where Josefina became a renowned figure. In an interview in La Noche con Amigos, the radio speaker Lionel Godoy asked her why she did not return definitively to Buenos Aires. Without shyness but with irony, the singer replied: «Because I have to eat!». The instinctive rebuff of the emcee for the spontaneous answer by Josefina, would not have faded (we think) the knowing smile of an audience pleased by the answer. In fact, tango shows were declining. On her successful tenure abroad Josefina recorded the vinyl LP Tangos del alma (1985) for CBS Records in Berlin. Furthermore she was backed up by Leopoldo Federico in a release that included “La última copa”, “Qué sapa señor” and “Qué vachaché”.

She added music, also, to the tango lyrics of her husband, the wordsmith Carlos Tavano, in a series of testimonial pieces: “Memoria del empleado” (1983) takes us to a «...cantata del laburo y del hollín / de miles de edificios sin jardín / de gente igual que él / con sueños sin dormir / copiando siempre el paso que lo lleva. / Semáforos adentro / lo va gastando / el centro, / tecleando la amargura del confín».

“Memoria del primer amor” (1982), “Memoria del barrilete”, “Memoria del amigo que se fue” and “Memoria de la ciudad”, the latter of 1983, also composed and premiered by Josefina. All them comprise a plan of coherent urban portrayals. They anticipate and install the recovery of the memory of that near, revulsive past in which are found the rebellious tango of Héctor Negro, the good faith of Eladia Blázquez, the existential grief of Ernesto Pierro, the qualitative, heterogeneous forcefulness of Miguel Ángel Jubany, the impulse and drive of Juanca Tavera and Mario Iaquinandi.

Also the amazing fingerings of Osvaldo Tarantino and Raúl Garello; the obsessive, charismatic searches of Cacho Castaña, the refreshing overtones of Graciela Susana and of El Alemancito Reynaldo Martín... the decision of not surrendering of Josefina herself. Among a constellation of artists that got over the contingency of a time that disturbed nearly everything except love and tango resistance.

Withdrawn from show business, she finds time to collect old piano sheet music and inquire after forgotten pieces and composers. The then traveler and special interpreter of songs is focused on research, now satisfied with her contribution and happy with a Guardia Joven that today (like yesterday the ones above and many artists not less valuable despite they are unknown) do not resign themselves to confinement and persist in “being and making” the porteña and quite universal urban song.